Thursday, January 22, 2009

Obama Macht Frei

Obama has kept his word and will shut down Guantanamo. It shouldn't be a controversial for modern nation states to hold among them as understood that you don't fucking disappear people. The rights to charge, trial and habeas corpus, those are fundamental rights. Yeah, they're guaranteed to us Americans under our Constitution and the folks in Gitmo aren't American, but that doesn't make a fundamental right any less fundamental.

It appears that we don't actually have a case against most of the folks there anyhow, but that's ancilliary. Even if they're as guilty as the frickin' wingnuts say they are, they deserve to be charged, tried, and convicted (or not) in a fair court of law (not the kangaroo court crap that Bush put forward). The Constitution, their citizenship, and the nature of their crimes don't enter into it. We'll do it because we're Americans, and that's the way we roll. Well, it's how we've been rolling since last Tuesday anyhow. McVeigh got a jury of his peers, same as Socrates, and so does every rapist, murderer and pedophile that finds himself in the care of US law enforcement. Terrorism is a law enforcement problem like any other. Treating it any differently doesn't do anything but distract from the issue and pump up the egoes of the terrorists themselves.

Anyhowz, props to Obama for doing the right thing. The Fox News crowd is probably stewing a bit, but it's not like they were in his corner anyway.